allowed the possibility of such construction as mentioned is
terrible. I am fain to hope that the pages themselves are not to
be even mentioned for such gratuitous and quite at the time
undreamed and unwished possibility of morbid inferences--which
are disavowed by me and seem damnable."
It would seem from this letter[96] that Whitman had never realized that
there is any relationship whatever between the passionate emotion of
physical contact from man to man, as he had experienced it and sung it,
and the act which with other people he would regard as a crime against
nature. This may be singular, for there are many inverted persons who have
found satisfaction in friendships less physical and passionate than those
described in _Leaves of Grass_, but Whitman was a man of concrete,
emotional, instinctive temperament, lacking in analytical power, receptive
to all influences, and careless of harmonizing them. He would most
certainly have refused to admit that he was the subject of inverted
sexuality. It remains true, however, that "manly love"
occupies in his
work a predominance which it would scarcely hold in the feelings of the
"average man," whom Whitman wishes to honor. A normally constituted
person, having assumed the very frank attitude taken up by Whitman, would
be impelled to devote far more space and far more ardor to the subject of
sexual relationships with women and all that is involved in maternity than
is accorded to them in _Leaves of Grass_. Some of Whitman's extant letters
to young men, though they do not throw definite light on this question,
are of a very affectionate character,[97] and, although a man of
remarkable physical vigor, he never felt inclined to marry.[98] It remains
somewhat difficult to classify him from the sexual point of view, but we
can scarcely fail to recognize the presence of a homosexual tendency.
I should add that some friends and admirers of Whitman are not
prepared to accept the evidence of the letter to Symonds. I am
indebted to "Q." for the following statement of the objections:--
"I think myself that it is a mistake to give much weight to this
letter--perhaps a mistake to introduce it at all, since if
introduced it will, of course, carry weight. And this for three
or four reasons:--
"1. That it is difficult to reconcile the letter itself (with its
strong tone of disapprobation) with the general
'atmosphere' of
_Leaves of Grass_, the tenor of which is to leave everything open
and free.
"2. That the letter is in hopeless conflict with the
'Calamus'
section of poems. For, whatever moral lines Whitman may have
drawn at the time of writing these poems, it seems to me quite
incredible that the possibility of certain inferences, morbid or
other, was undreamed of.
"3. That the letter was written only a few months before his last
illness and death, and is the only expression of the kind that he
appears to have given utterance to.
"4. That Symonds's letter, to which this was a reply, is not
forth coming; and we consequently do not know what rash
expressions it may have contained--leading Whitman (with his
extreme caution) to hedge his name from possible use to justify
dubious practices."
I may add that I endeavored to obtain Symonds's letter, but he
was unable to produce it, nor has any copy of it been found among
his papers.
It should be said that Whitman's attitude toward Symonds was
marked by high regard and admiration. "A wonderful man is
Addington Symonds," he remarked shortly before his own death;
"some ways the most indicative and penetrating and significant
man of our time. Symonds is a curious fellow; I love him dearly.
He is of college breed and education, horribly literary and
suspicious, and enjoys things. A great fellow for delving into
persons and into the concrete, and even into the physiological
and the gastric, and wonderfully cute." But on this occasion he
delved in vain.
The foregoing remarks (substantially contained in the previous
editions of this book) were based mainly on the information
received from J.A. Symonds's side. But of more recent years
interesting light has been thrown on this remarkable letter from
Walt Whitman's side. The Boswellian patience, enthusiasm, and
skill which Horace Traubel has brought to his full and elaborate
work, now in course of publication, _With Walt Whitman in
Camden_, clearly reveal, in the course of various conversations,
Whitman's attitude to Symonds's question and the state of mind
which led up to this letter.
Whitman talked to Traubel much about Symonds from the
twenty-seventh of April, 1888 (very soon after the date when
Traubel's work begins), onward. Symonds had written to him
repeatedly, it seems, concerning the "passional relations of men
with men," as Whitman expressed it. "He is always driving at me
about that: is that what Calamus means?--because of me or in
spite of me, is that what it means? I have said no, but no does
not satisfy him. [There is, however, no record from Symonds's
side of any letter by Whitman to Symonds in this sense up to this
date.] But read this letter--read the whole of it: it is very
shrewd, very cute, in deadliest earnest: it drives me hard,
almost compels me--it is urgent, persistent: he sort of stands in
the road and says 'I won't move till you answer my question.' You
see, this is an old letter--sixteen years old--and he is still
asking the question: he refers to it in one of his latest notes.
He is surely a wonderful man--a rare, cleaned-up man--a
white-souled, heroic character.... You will be writing something
about Calamus some day," said W. [to Traubel], "and this letter,
and what I say, may help to clear your ideas.
Calamus needs clear
ideas; it may be easily, innocently distorted from its natural,
its motive, body of doctrine."
The letter, dated Feb. 7, 1872, of some length, is then
reproduced. It tells how much _Leaves of Grass_, and especially
the Calamus section, had helped the writer. "What the love of man
for man has been in the past," Symonds wrote, "I think I know.
What it is here now, I know also--alas! What you say it can and
should be I dimly discern in your Poems. But this hardly
satisfies me--so desirous am I of learning what you teach. Some
day, perhaps,--in some form, I know not what, but in your own
chosen form,--you will tell me more about the Love of Friends.
Till then I wait."
"Said W: 'Well, what do you think of that? Do you think that
could be answered?' 'I don't see why you call that letter driving
you hard. It's quiet enough--it only asks questions, and asks the
questions mildly enough,' 'I suppose you are right--
"drive" is
not exactly the word: yet you know how I hate to be catechised.
Symonds is right, no doubt, to ask the questions: I am just as
much right if I do not answer them: just as much right if I do
answer them. I often say to myself about Calamus--
perhaps it
means more or less than what I thought myself--means different:
perhaps I don't know what it all means--perhaps never did know.
My first instinct about all that Symonds writes is violently
reactionary--is strong and brutal for no, no, no.
Then the
thought intervenes that I maybe do not know all my own meanings:
I say to myself: "You, too, go away, come back, study your own
book--as alien or stranger, study your own book, see what it
amounts to." Some time or other I will have to write to him
definitely about Calamus--give him my word for it what I meant or
mean it to mean.'"
Again, a month later (May 24, 1888), Whitman speaks to Traubel of
a "beautiful letter" from Symonds. "You will see that he harps on
the Calamus poems again. I don't see why it should, but his
recurrence to that subject irritates me a little. I suppose you
might say--why don't you shut him up by answering him? There is
no logical answer to that I suppose: but I may ask in my turn:
'What right has he to ask questions anyway?'" W.
laughed a bit.
"Anyway the question comes back to me almost every time he
writes. He is courteous enough about it--that is the reason I do
not resent him. I suppose the whole thing will end in an answer
some day."
The letter follows. The chief point in it is that the writer
hopes he has not been importunate in the question he had asked
about Calamus three years before.
"I [Traubel] said to W.: 'That's a humble letter enough: I don't
see anything in that to get excited about. He doesn't ask you to
answer the old question. In fact he rather apologizes for having
asked it.' W. fired up 'Who is excited? As to that question, he
does ask it again and again: asks it, asks it, asks it.' I
laughed at his vehemence. 'Well, suppose he does? It does not
harm. Besides, you've got nothing to hide. I think your silence
might lead him to suppose there was a nigger in your wood pile.'
'Oh, nonsense! But for thirty years my enemies and friends have
been asking me questions about the _Leaves_: I'm tired of not
answering questions.' It was very funny to see his face when he
gave a humorous twist to the fling in his last phrase. Then he
relaxed and added: 'Anyway I love Symonds. Who could fail to love
a man who could write such a letter? I suppose he will yet have
to be answered, damn 'im!'"
It is clear that these conversations considerably diminish the force of
the declaration in Whitman's letter. We see that the letter which, on the
face of it, might have represented the swift and indignant reaction of a
man who, suddenly faced by the possibility that his work may be
interpreted in a perverse sense, emphatically repudiates that
interpretation, was really nothing of the kind. Symonds for at least
eighteen years had been gently, considerately, even humbly, yet
persistently, asking the same perfectly legitimate question. If the answer
was really an emphatic no, it would more naturally have been made in 1872
than 1890. Moreover, in the face of this ever-recurring question, Whitman
constantly speaks to his friends of his great affection for Symonds and
his admiration for his intellectual cuteness, feelings that would both be
singularly out of place if applied to a man who was all the time
suggesting the possibility that his writings contained inferences that
were "terrible," "morbid," and "damnable." Evidently, during all those
years, Whitman could not decide what to reply. On the one hand he was
moved by his horror of being questioned, by his caution, by his natural
aversion to express approval of anything that could be called unnatural or
abnormal. On the other hand, he was moved by the desire to let his work
speak for itself, by his declared determination to leave everything open,
and possibly by a more or less conscious sympathy with the inferences
presented to him. It was not until the last years of his life, when his
sexual life belonged to the past, when weakness was gaining on him, when
he wished to put aside every drain on his energies, that--being
constitutionally incapable of a balanced scientific statement--he chose
the simplest and easiest solution of the difficulty.[99]
Concerning another great modern writer--Paul Verlaine, the first of modern
French poets--it seems possible to speak with less hesitation. A man who
possessed in fullest measure the irresponsible impressionability of
genius, Verlaine--as his work shows and as he himself admitted--all his
life oscillated between normal and homosexual love, at one period
attracted to women, at another to men. He was without doubt, it seems to
me, bisexual. An early connection with another young poet, Arthur Rimbaud,
terminated in a violent quarrel with his friend, and led to Verlaine's
imprisonment at Mons. In after-years he gave expression to the exalted
passion of this relationship--_mon grand péché radieux_-
-in _Læti et
Errabundi_, published in the volume entitled _Parallèlement_; and in later
poems he has told of less passionate and less sensual relationships which
yet were more than friendship, for instance, in the poem, "_Mon ami, ma
plus belle amitié, ma Meilleure_" in _Bonheur_.[100]
In this brief glance at some of the ethnographical, historical, religious,
and literary aspects of homosexual passion there is one other phenomenon
which may be mentioned. This is the alleged fact that, while the phenomena
exist to some extent everywhere, we seem to find a special proclivity to
homosexuality (whether or not involving a greater frequency of congenital
inversion is not usually clear) among certain races and in certain
regions.[101] In Europe this would be best illustrated by the case of
southern Italy, which in this respect is held to be distinct from northern
Italy, although Italians generally are franker than men of northern race
in admitting their sexual practices.[102] How far the supposed greater
homosexuality of southern Italy may be due to Greek influence and Greek
blood it is not very easy to say.
It must be remembered that, in dealing with a northern country like
England, homosexual phenomena do not present themselves in the same way as
they do in southern Italy today, or in ancient Greece.
In Greece the
homosexual impulse was recognized and idealized; a man could be an open
homosexual lover, and yet, like Epaminondas, be a great and honored
citizen of his country. There was no reason whatever why a man, who in
mental and physical constitution was perfectly normal, should not adopt a
custom that was regarded as respectable, and sometimes as even specially
honorable. But it is quite otherwise today in a country like England or
the United States.[103] In these countries all our traditions and all our
moral ideals, as well as the law, are energetically opposed to every
manifestation of homosexual passion. It requires a very strong impetus to
go against this compact social force which, on every side, constrains the
individual into the paths of heterosexual love. That impetus, in a
well-bred individual who leads the normal life of his fellow-men and who
feels the ordinary degree of respect for the social feeling surrounding
him, can only be supplied by a fundamental--usually, it is probable,
inborn--perversion of the sexual instinct, rendering the individual
organically abnormal. It is with this fundamental abnormality, usually
called sexual inversion, that we shall here be concerned. There is no
evidence to show that homosexuality in Greece was a congenital perversion,
although it appears that Coelius Aurelianus affirms that in the opinion of
Parmenides it was hereditary. Aristotle also, in his fragment on physical
love, though treating the whole matter with indulgence, seems to have
distinguished abnormal congenital homosexuality from acquired homosexual
vice. Doubtless in a certain proportion of cases the impulse was organic,
and it may well be that there was an organic and racial predisposition to
homosexuality among the Greeks, or, at all events, the Dorians. But the
state of social feeling, however it originated, induced a large proportion
of the ordinary population to adopt homosexuality as a fashion, or, it may
be said, the environment was peculiarly favorable to the development of
latent homosexual tendencies. So that any given number of homosexual
persons among the Greeks would have presented a far smaller proportion of
constitutionally abnormal individuals than a like number in England.
In a similar manner--though I do not regard the analogy as
complete--infanticide or the exposition of children was practised in some
of the early Greek States by parents who were completely healthy and
normal; in England a married woman who destroys her child is in nearly
every case demonstrably diseased or abnormal. For this reason I am unable
to see that homosexuality in ancient Greece--while of great interest as a
social and psychological problem--throws light on sexual inversion as we
know it in England or the United States.
Concerning the wide prevalence of sexual inversion and of homosexual
phenomena generally, there can be no manner of doubt.
This question has
been most fully investigated in Germany. In Berlin, Moll states that he
has himself seen between 600 and 700 homosexual persons and heard of some
250 to 350 others. Hirschfeld states that he has known over 10,000
homosexual persons.
There are, I am informed, several large cafés in Berlin which are almost
exclusively patronized by inverts who come here to flirt and make
acquaintances; as these cafés are frequented by male street prostitutes
(Pupenjunge) the invert risks being blackmailed or robbed if he goes home
or to a hotel with a café acquaintance. There are also a considerable
number of homosexual _Kneipen_, small and unpretentious bar-rooms, which
are really male brothels, the inmates being sexually normal working men
and boys, out of employment or in quest of a few marks as pocket money;
these places are regarded by inverts as very safe, as the proprietors
insist on good order and allow no extortion, while the police, though of
course aware of their existence, never interfere.
Homosexual cafés for
women are also found in Berlin.
There is some reason for believing that homosexuality is especially
prominent in Germany and among Germans. I have elsewhere referred to the
highly emotional and sentimental traits which have frequently marked
German friendships. Germany is the only country in which there is a
definite and well-supported movement for the defense and social
rehabilitation of inverts. The study of sexual inversion began in Germany,
and the scientific and literary publications dealing with homosexuality
issued from the German press probably surpass in quantity and importance
those issued from all other countries put together. The homosexual
tendencies of Germans outside Germany have been noted in various
countries. Among my English cases I have found that a strain of German
blood occurs much more frequently than we are entitled to expect; Parisian
prostitutes are said to be aware of the homosexual tastes of Germans; it
is significant that (as a German invert familiar with Turkey informed
Näcke), at Constantinople, the procurers, who naturally supply girls as
well as youths, regard Germans and Austrians as more tending to
homosexuality than the foreigners from any other land.
Germans usually
deny, however, that there is any special German proclivity to inversion,
and it would not appear that such statistics as are available (though all
such statistics cannot be regarded as more than approximations) show any
pronounced predominance of inversion among Germans. It is to Hirschfeld
that we owe the chief attempt to gain some notion of the percentage of
homosexual persons among the general population.[104] It may be said to
vary in different regions and more especially in different occupations,
from 1 to 10 per cent. But the average when the individuals belonging to a
large number of groups are combined is generally found to be rather over 2
per cent. So that there are about a million and a half inverted persons in
Germany.[105] This would be a minimum which can scarcely fail to be below
the actual proportion, as no one can be certain that he is acquainted with
the real proclivities of all the persons comprising a larger group of
acquaintances.[106] It is not found in the estimates which have reached
Hirschfeld that the French groups show a smaller proportion of homosexual
persons than the German groups, and a Japanese group comes out near to
the general average for the whole. Various authorities, especially
Germans, believe that homosexuality is just as common in France as in
Germany.[107] Saint-Paul ("Dr. Laupts"), on the other hand, is unable to
accept this view. As an army surgeon who has long served in Africa he can
(as also Rebierre in his _Joyeux et demifous_) bear witness to the
frequency of homosexuality among the African battalions of the French
army, especially in the cavalry, less so in the infantry; in the French
army generally he finds it rare, as also in the general population.[108]
Näcke is also inclined to believe that homosexuality is rarer in Celtic
lands, and in the Latin countries generally, than in Teutonic and Slavonic
lands, and believes that it may be a question of race.[109] The question
is still undecided. It is possible that the undoubted fact that
homosexuality is less conspicuous in France and the other Latin countries
than in Teutonic lands, may be due not to the occurrence of a smaller
proportion of congenital inverts in the former lands, but mainly to
general difference in temperament and in the social reaction.[110] The
French idealize and emphasize the place of women to a much greater degree
than the Germans, while at the same time inverts in France have much less
occasion than in Germany to proclaim their legal grievances. Apart from
such considerations as these it seems very doubtful whether inborn
inversion is in any considerable degree rarer in France than in Germany.
As to the frequency of homosexuality in England[111] and the United
States there is much evidence. In England its manifestations are well
marked for those whose eyes have once been opened. The manifestations are
of the same character as those in Germany, modified by social and national
differences, and especially by the greater reserve, Puritanism, and
prudery of England.[112] In the United States these same influences exert
a still greater effect in restraining the outward manifestations of
homosexuality. Hirschfeld, though so acute and experienced in the
investigation of homosexuality, states that when visiting Philadelphia and
Boston he could scarcely detect any evidence of homosexuality, though he
was afterward assured by those acquainted with local conditions that its
extension in both cities is "colossal." There have been numerous criminal
cases and scandals in the United States in which homosexuality has come to
the surface, and the very frequently occurring cases of transvestism or
cross-dressing in the States seem to be in a large proportion associated
with homosexuality.
In the opinion of some, English homosexuality has become much more
conspicuous during recent years, and this is sometimes attributed to the
Oscar Wilde case. No doubt, the celebrity of Oscar Wilde and the universal
publicity given to the facts of the case by the newspapers may have
brought conviction of their perversion to many inverts who were before
only vaguely conscious of their abnormality, and, paradoxical though it
may seem, have imparted greater courage to others; but it can scarcely
have sufficed to increase the number of inverts. Rather, one may say, the
development of urban life renders easier the exhibition and satisfaction
of this as of all other forms of perversion. Regarding the proportion of
inverts among the general population, it is very difficult to speak
positively. The invert himself is a misleading guide because he has formed
round himself a special coterie of homosexual persons, and, moreover, he
is sometimes apt